Cast Of Cosby Show

The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, first airing on September 20, 1984 and running for eight seasons on the NBC television network, until April 30, 1992.

Based off the old Minstrel shows The Cosby Show was performed entirely by white people in black face. An interesting “what-if” scenario about a prosperous black family, it was incredibly popular among people of all races for it’s accurate portrayal of white people dressed up as black people.

When Married… with Children debuted on Fox TV on April 5, 1987 (followed by The Tracey Ullman Show a half-hour later), the grungy sitcom became an instant flagship for Rupert Murdoch’s upstart network. The program’s much-publicized working title, Not the Cosbys (a dismissive reference to the cheerful vitality of Bill Cosby’s hugely popular television clan on NBC’s The Cosby Show) was a dead giveaway. Married… with Children was going to be a trashier, raunchier, and far more cynical view of the American nuclear family. But it turned out the series actually fell into other caustic-domestic entertainment traditions, notably the Don Ameche and Frances Langford radio comedy series from the 1940s, The Bickersons, and Jackie Gleason’s TV classic, The Honeymooners. The jokes were savage, key relationships were marked by ennui and indifference, and the Bundy family name couldn’t help but make one think of America’s most notorious, real-life serial killer at the time. Yet the show had a hint of Golden Age Hollywood gloss, a retro-screwball feel that one could detect in the snappy verbal warfare between husband Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) and wife Peggy (Katey Sagal). The characters, and the show, eschewed sentimentality, which certainly opened the floodgates to comic cynicism but also kept a door ajar for moments of genuine sweetness. A decade later, however, by the time Fox cancelled the increasingly expensive series, Married… with Children’s first-season tone would be considerably different, replaced by a stronger reliance on running jokes and character stereotypes, particularly concerning Bundy children Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino). That evolution makes watching Married… with Children’s first 13 episodes, once again, quite instructive. Those programs are all on this two-disc set, including the startling pilot, in which Al and Peggy lock horns over marital politics and enlist naive new neighbors Steve (David Garrison) and Marcy (Amanda Bearse) in a battle of the sexes. There’s also the classic “Whose Room Is It, Anyway,” concerning the Bundys’ competition to connive Steve and Marcy into building a recreation room, and “Thinnergy,” a very funny piece about a diet that supposedly boosts sexual interest. –Tom Keogh

RIP Gary Coleman

(CNN) — Former child star Gary Coleman, who rose to fame as the wisecracking youngster Arnold Jackson on the TV sitcom "Diff’rent Strokes" but grew up to grapple with a troubled adulthood, has died. He was 42.

Coleman died of a brain hemorrhage at a Provo, Utah hospital, Friday afternoon, according to a hospital spokeswoman. The actor fell ill at his Santaquin, Utah, home Wednesday evening and was rushed by ambulance to a hospital, Coleman’s spokesman had said in a statement earlier Friday.

He was then taken to another hospital — Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo — later Wednesday night.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Coleman was one of television’s brightest stars, the personality around which NBC’s "Strokes" — the story of two inner-city children who are taken in by a wealthy businessman, his daughter and their housekeeper — was built.

His natural charm and way with a line — the frequently uttered "Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?", directed at his older brother (played by Todd Bridges), became a catchphrase –helped make the show a breakout hit, a mainstay of the NBC schedule from 1978 to 1985 (and on ABC for a year afterward).

But in later years Coleman’s name became a punch line. He was denigrated because of his short stature — he never grew taller than 4 feet 8 inches because of nephritis, a kidney condition. He sued his parents over mismanagement of his finances; though he won a $1.3 million settlement in 1993, he had to file for bankruptcy six years later. He was occasionally in the news for scuffles. He appeared on TV court shows and had a brief run for governor of California.

Indeed, the 2003 Broadway musical "Avenue Q" featured a character named Gary Coleman who was identified as the former star of "Diff’rent Strokes," and was now the superintendent of an apartment building. (Coleman himself had once been a security guard after "Diff’rent Strokes" went off the air.) The character joined the cast in singing a song called "It Sucks to Be Me."

Coleman was born on February 8, 1968 and raised in Zion, Illinois, near Chicago. He was adopted as an infant by Willie Coleman, a representative for a pharmaceutical company, and Sue Coleman, a nurse. By age 5, Coleman was modeling for retailer Montgomery Ward, a job that was followed by appearances in commercials for McDonald’s and Hallmark, according to a 1979 profile in People magazine.

After Norman Lear cast him in an unsuccessful pilot for a new version of "The Little Rascals" — Coleman played Stymie — he got the role of Arnold in "Diff’rent Strokes."

"Pudgy cheeks, twinking eyes, and flawless timing made him seem like an old pro packed into the body of a small child," wrote Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present."

At the time, NBC was mired in last place among the three major broadcast networks and, excluding movies, had just two series in the Nielsen Top 20. "Strokes" was an immediate hit, finishing in the Top 30 its first three years, and made Coleman into a household name.

Veterans marveled at his comic timing. He appeared several times on Johnny Carson’s "The Tonight Show," performed on several specials and had a hit TV movie with "The Kid From Left Field." Until NBC started its mid-’80s rise with "The A-Team" and "The Cosby Show," he was the primary prime-time face of the network.

"Gary is exceptional, and not only by the standards set for children. He’s bright, sweet and affectionate. He seems incapable of a wrong reading, and I’ve never seen that in any actor," co-star Conrad Bain, who played "Strokes’ " millionaire industrialist Philip Drummond, told People in 1979.

"His talent," his mother added, "may be God’s way of compensating him for what he’s been through, and the fact that he’ll never have the physical size of other boys." Coleman reportedly had a kidney transplant at 5, and would have another when he was 16.

Step into the role of Danny Tanner from Full House or Bill Cosby from The Cosby Show! Scotiabank Nuit Blanche guests of all genders, ages & cultural backgrounds are invited to perform the ‘father’ role in an original 90’s influenced family sitcom.

Taped in a ‘TV studio set’ visible behind a glass facade, the integrated live performance will be broadcast to the audience outside – confronting the viewers with an unusually cast ‘father’ in a traditional family.

cast of cosby show

The Cosby Show appeared on NBC from 1984 to 1992, becoming one of the most popular programs in the history of television. The Cosby Show depicted a close-knit and prosperous African-American family that dwelled in New York City. Dr. Heathcliff and Clair Huxtable were a happily married, dual-profession couple with aspirations of raising their 5 children in an uplifting, positive environment. The Cosby Show held TV’s #1 slot for a record 5 consecutive years (1985 to 1990) and stayed in the Top 20 shows for all eight seasons it was on NBC.

Looking back at season 1 of The Cosby Show, it’s easy to forget that momentous history was being made. Not only did this immensely popular sitcom hold the #1 spot among all network TV shows for five consecutive seasons (a record that still stands), but it promoted an evolutionary progression that influenced the entire TV industry from that point forward. African Americans had enjoyed sitcom success in the past (on Julia, The Jeffersons, and Good Times), but the idealized family of Cliff and Clair Huxtable (Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad) represented a new and quietly revolutionary perspective; married for 21 years with five children (one in college, a detail unmentioned in the pilot episode), the Huxtables were happy and successful (he’s a doctor, she’s a lawyer), and issues of race were almost entirely irrelevant to the show’s universal appeal. Making their Thursday-night debut on September 20, 1984, they were conceived by Cosby (as “executive consultant Dr. William H. Cosby Jr., Ed.D.”), cocreators Ed. Weinberger and Michael Leeson, and executive producers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey, with a matter-of-fact approach to upgrading the African American image, built upon Cosby’s rubber-faced popularity as a stand-up comedian and rooted in the complete and unbiased integration of the black experience into the American mainstream. More to the point, The Cosby Show was eminently respectable family entertainment, perhaps too squeaky-clean for some tastes, but immediately popular at a time when Eddie Murphy (in Beverly Hills Cop) was honing a more profane image that Cosby disapproved of.The show was also perfectly cast for mass appeal, from the irresistible precociousness of Keshia Knight Pulliam (as the youngest and most charming Huxtable daughter, Rudy) to the stylish adolescence of Lisa Bonet (years before her controversial role in Angel Heart) as 16-year-old Denise; Malcolm-Jamal Warner as outspoken teenager Theo; Tempestt Bledsoe as sensible younger daughter Vanessa; and Sabrina LaBeauf as college student and eventual mother of twins, Sondra. Combined with the effortless chemistry of Cosby and Rashad (credited in Season 1 as Phylicia Ayers Allen), the entire cast forged an easygoing, loosely-rehearsed dynamic that was genuinely familial.Given The Cosby Show’s immense popularity, it’s deeply regrettable that the exorbitant cost of original music rights resulted in this DVD release of edited episodes that were shortened, with different music cues added, for perpetual syndication. Fans eager to see the original NBC broadcasts were understandably outraged, and this shortcoming should be addressed in DVD releases of subsequent seasons. In truth, the episodes (including “Goodbye, Mr. Fish,” a perfect example of the show’s universal appeal) are not significantly diminished by the careful editing; for casual fans, the difference is barely worth mentioning. And while the 90-minute bonus feature “The Cosby Show: A Look Back” (a clip show originally broadcast May 19, 2002) suffers from the conspicuous absence of Bonet (who by then had mostly retreated from show business), it duly conveys the long-term value (and moral values) of the series, which singlehandedly restored the fortunes of NBC while embracing familial togetherness that would inform many of the popular sitcoms that followed its noble example. –Jeff Shannon